Here’s Everything New On Netflix This Week, Including ‘Dumplin’ And ‘Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle’

The first week of the month is a busy one for Netflix this December. The streaming platform is churning out a slew of original films, including the Southern-fried Dumplin’ (starring Jennifer Aniston) and Andy Serkis’ dark Jungle Book remake. If full-length features aren’t your thing, The Ranch is back for another round, and a new documentary about social media influencers might find a place in your queue. Of course, it can be tough to keep up with all of the new content the streaming service is putting out, so we’re bringing you a round-up of what’s new to Netflix and what’s departing this week of December 7th.

Dumplin’ (film streaming 12/7)

Willowdean “Dumplin” Dickson (Danielle Macdonald) is the titular star of this comedy that’s been plunged into a deep-fryer and emerged as a dark comedy about the societal pressures of conventional beauty and the tug-and-pull of complicated mother-daughter relationships. Dumplin’ is a curvy, confident heroine, the daughter of a beautiful mother who runs beauty pageants for the fun of it (Jennifer Aniston giving just the right amount of Southern-snark). When Dumplin’ decides to enter a pageant to show the judges, and her mother, that she can win and that beauty shouldn’t conform to their standards, she ends up turning the world of feather boas and press-on nails and hairspray on its head.

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (film streaming 12/7)

Andy Serkis is giving us a decidedly darker twist on a childhood favorite with his live-action, motion-capture reimagining of The Jungle Book. The bones of the story are the same: Mowgli, a young orphan, is raised by a pack of wolves, taught survival by a panther named Bagheera (Christian Bale), and offered friendship by a lazy, good-natured bear named Baloo (Serkis). Shere Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) has it out for the young man-cub, which causes conflict amongst Mowgli’s protectors and forces the boy to prove himself to his pack or join the human village nearby. What’s different from the iteration Warner Bros. produced last year is Serkis’ desire to soak each of these characters in blood to give a grittier version of the story. Does it work? You be the judge.

The American Meme (documentary streaming 12/7)

This latest Netflix documentary focuses on a fascinating, if not completely bizarre, topic: Social media influencers. We’ve all heard of them. They’re the people getting millions for broadcasting ads to their Instagram followings, but this film takes us behind-the-scenes of that job. And it is a full-time job. Paris Hilton, Josh Ostrovsky (aka The Fat Jewish), Brittany Furlan, and Kirill Bichutsky allow cameras to follow them as they grow their social media empires with famous faces like DJ Khaled, Hailey Baldwin, and Emily Ratajkowski popping up along the way. If being Insta-famous is your goal in life, take notes.